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Wayne Smith | October 20, 2009
Article from: The Australian
WALLABIES coach Robbie Deans has revealed the ARU is seriously investigating reviving a third-tier competition to improve the depth in Australian rugby and provide a meaningful stepping stone between club and professional football.
Deans conceded on the weekend the lack of a strong domestic competition was hurting Australia's international results, suggesting the game needed to adopt a model akin to cricket's Sheffield Shield competition.
It was a valid analogy for more reasons than one, because like the Sheffield Shield, which is an invaluable component of Australian cricket yet runs at a loss, the brief experiment of the third-tier Australian Rugby Championship in 2007 also proved a heavy drain on the ARU's budget.
Despite the fact all parties involved believed it had been an outstanding success from a rugby perspective and vowed that the second year of the competition would be played at a fraction of the cost, the ARC was cancelled after only one season.
The ARU has come under increasing fire for not reviving the concept, but Deans yesterday insisted the criticism was not warranted.
"It's something the ARU is looking at," Deans said. "There is a lot going on."
The coach said the introduction of a likely fifth Australian franchise -- in Melbourne -- and extension of Super rugby to a 22-week season extending from February to the first weekend in August would take up some of the slack in Australia's calendar.
But Deans stressed there was still a need for a third tier, post-club tournament.
"Any form of half-way competition that is economically sustainable would be good," he said.
Earlier this year, ARU chief executive John O'Neill indicated a modified version of the ARC might be considered if the new SANZAR broadcast deal poured sufficient money into the ARU coffers.
Indeed, he foreshadowed the possibility of a trans-Tasman competition that might take the place of New Zealand's financially-troubled NPC -- the Air New Zealand Cup, to give it its official title.
The existing 14-team NPC is teetering on the brink of collapse and almost certainly will be trimmed back in size in 2011, possibly to 10 teams. But where all previous attempts to tap into the domestic New Zealand competition have come to nothing, this time it is in the NZRU's interest to seriously consider an Australian involvement.
Whether or not that avenue opens up, the chairmen and CEO's of Australia's four Super rugby franchises -- possibly to be joined by their Victorian counterparts if tomorrow's SANZAR meeting approves Melbourne's admission to the Super 15 -- will have a third-tier competition at the top of their agenda when they meet in Sydney next Tuesday.
The meeting is designed to achieve some unity of purpose among the states before their December 7 summit with the ARU, with seemingly everyone but Queensland convinced there is a pressing need for a third-tier competition.
"I liked what I saw of club football this season and we'd probably end up going to club footy to create a pathway (through to the professional ranks)," QRU chairman Rod McCall said.
While existing clubs would certainly provide the tribalism that was missing from the ARC, the downside of taking that approach is that it would create a handful of super-clubs at the expense of all the rest. If, for instance Sydney University, Randwick and Eastern Suburbs formed the nucleus of a third-tier competition, any school-leaver with ambitions of playing professional rugby would feel compelled to join one of them.
Deans admitted he was encouraged by the fact that the state chairmen intend to discuss a third-tier competition next week.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html
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Originally Posted by AndyS
- not intentional...)
